Some image forming devices use powdered toner as the marking material for image forming on image receiving substrates. The term “toner” generally refers to a powder used as the marking material in image forming devices such as xerographic image forming devices, laser printers and photocopiers to form printed text and images on image receiving substrates.
Toner is typically packaged in containers of differing sizes, shapes and compositions. The containers may be generically referred to as “toner cartridges.” Toner cartridges are often closed containers in which the toner is conveniently packaged for supply to customers and/or end users. Toner cartridges are customer replaceable consumable components that the customers or end-users install as complete replacement units in the image forming devices, which may be opened for access to the toner by an image forming device once the toner cartridge is installed in the image forming device
Toner cartridge manufacturers are continually challenged with maximizing toner cartridge life expectancy and reducing waste. As a toner cartridge is used, an image forming device may indicate that a toner cartridge is empty, or a user may determine that a toner cartridge is empty based on print quality. But, residual amounts of usable toner may still remain in the toner cartridge despite a determination that a toner cartridge is empty.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,699,842 discusses a process for filling and dispersing the contents of a container, and is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety.